Boons

+ATK: A boon here will help Draug significantly with his damage output, as his base 30 Attack is fairly middling otherwise.

+DEF: Draug has massive base Defense, and a +DEF boon will emphasize his tankiness even further.

+SPD: Draug’s Speed can be quite useful if he is given Special Fighter, due to it being high enough that he can potentially double naturally on Player Phase while also being able to deny some doubles on Enemy Phase. Without Special Fighter, however, Draug’s Speed is best left neutral since a +ATK or +DEF boon will be significantly more beneficial.

Banes

-RES: Draug’s Resistance is easily his worst stat, and can easily be dumped. Lowering his Resistance stat will not significantly impact his ability to deal with magical damage-dealing enemies.

-HP: While not quite as good as -RES due to also impacting Draug’s physical bulk, a -HP bane is acceptable if -RES is unavailable.

One of the biggest consequences of the Special Fighter skill is that now any armor can mimic one of the greatest strengths of the Steady Breath/Distant Counter combo, which is to be able to maintain a 1-2 range for counterattacks combined with an accelerated Special charge rate. This is huge for Draug, as previously one of his biggest weaknesses in terms of utilizing Distant Counter was his inability to effectively deal enough damage on his initial counterattack, resulting in him losing a lot of matchups against mages. However, with Special Fighter Draug can now instantly activate Bonfire or Ignis, resulting in more than enough damage output to easily KO the vast majority of ranged threats, allowing him to now effectively utilize Distant Counter.

For IVs, +SPD can be quite potent due to Draug having enough Speed to potentially double enemies naturally as well as preventing follow-up attacks. However, this capability can be a bit pointless when dealing with enemies who can either prevent follow-up attacks (such as armors with Wary Fighter) or those who have skills that guarantee doubles (such as Ephraim with refined Siegmund or an armor with Bold Fighter). If these types of units are a concern, then the typical +ATK or +DEF boon with a -RES or -HP bane should be taken.

Choice of weapon and Special for Draug is highly dependent on his typical opponent and player preference. A Slaying Edge pairs well with Bonfire since it allows him to instantly activate it on his first counterattack; if using the Quickened Pulse Seal, then Draug can activate Ignis instead. Alternatively, Draug can use a Wo Dao if instant Special activations are a lower priority than maximizing raw damage output. Wo Dao is best paired with Ignis since it has the same charge time as Bonfire due to Special Fighter. It’s possible to pair Wo Dao with the Quickened Pulse Seal and Bonfire, but this is generally worse than pairing a Slaying Edge with Ignis and the Quickened Pulse Seal due to Draug’s high Defense favoring the superior damage scaling from Ignis. Wo Dao works better with a Speed stacking setup than Slaying Edge, but either weapon can be made functional in any setup.

Due to Draug’s potentially high Speed, Armor March is a good choice to help him close the distant to his opponents. However, if focusing on an Enemy Phase and/or not stacking Speed, then this isn’t strictly necessary; Draug’s base Ward Armor works great in armor teams, but otherwise his C skill can be replaced as needed to suit the team.

This is a standard mixed phase setup for armored units. The combination of Bold Fighter and Quick Riposte ensures that Draug will be able to double his opponent regardless of phase. One thing to note about Draug is that the combination of his low Resistance and decent Speed make Steady Breath or Warding Breath somewhat better choices than Distant Counter. Not only is he not particularly good at handling mages, but he has enough Speed that he can avoid a good number of doubles. Running Steady/Warding Breath ensures that even if Draug doesn’t get doubled, he can still activate his Special on Enemy Phase. Steady/Warding Breath also opens up the possibility of running the Quickened Pulse Seal to allow Draug to instantly activate his Special on his first counterattack, though this will cost him the ability to guarantee doubles on Enemy Phase afterward due to lacking the Quick Riposte Seal.

The combination of Slaying Edge and Ignis is the highest damage option for Draug, as Ignis allows him to leverage his massive Defense into a huge nuke. Having a 3 cooldown Special will allow Draug to always activate his Special on Player Phase (assuming the enemy can counterattack) thanks to Bold Fighter. Steady/Warding Breath allows Draug to always activate his Special on Enemy Phase with Quick Riposte even if he doesn’t get doubled; without either, Draug needs to get doubled in order to activate his Special. If Steady/Warding Breath are unavailable or one wants to use another A skill such as Distant Counter, then a -SPD bane may be worth consideration.

Armor March is a very useful buff to have when utilizing a mixed phase setup, as the increased movement makes it much easier for Draug to close the distance to engage an enemy on Player Phase. If unavailable or a teammate already has it, then a buff like Draug’s base Ward Armor is always a good choice; however, Draug’s C skill isn’t super important, and can be replaced as needed to suit the team.

Keeping with Draug’s namesake, this build is oriented purely toward Enemy Phase prowess. There are several factors that can drastically change how the build plays out, though the basic premise generally stays the same. The first choice to be made is preferred choice of Special: Ignis will offer by far the best damage output, but Aether offers far superior scoring in Arena and a bit of sustain. Bonfire is only recommended as a Special if paired with Steady Breath or Warding Breath and a Slaying Edge to allow Draug to activate his Special on every counterattack.

Steady/Warding Breath are recommended over Distant Counter due to Draug’s poor Resistance making him a poor fit for handling mages; however, he is capable of doing so if needed, particularly with buff support from his team. Draug has enough Speed that stacking Speed with a +SPD IV and a +Spd refined weapon can allow him to avoid a large number of doubles; this allows him to be efficient with a combo of Wo Dao and Ignis or Slaying Edge and Aether if running Steady/Warding Breath. However, keep in mind that there are a good number of enemies with skills that can completely circumvent Speed to double anyway (including enemies with Bold Fighter), so dumping Draug’s Speed entirely and focusing on his Defense tends to be a safer bet in this regard.

Pairing Steady Breath or Warding Breath with Vengeful Fighter is somewhat inefficient due to the increased Special charge gain not stacking, but it is still worthwhile since Vengeful Fighter will not give extra Special charges on enemy attacks as well as having a larger HP threshold than Quick Riposte. If Vengeful Fighter is unavailable, then Guard is a great option for protecting Draug from enemy Specials, greatly enhancing his survivability. If running Guard then pairing it with the Quick Riposte seal is a must to ensure that Draug can still double. Otherwise, running Quick Riposte as a B skill is acceptable despite being strictly inferior to Vengeful Fighter.

If not running the Quick Riposte seal (due to running Vengeful Fighter or Quick Riposte as a B skill), then Close Def and Distant Def are both good choices for simply increasing Draug’s tankiness. Neither are particularly necessary, however, and can be swapped as needed.

Introduction

Draug is an armored unit that is defined by his titanic physical bulk (89 at neutral and no skills) and oddly decent Speed. Furthermore, he is an excellent choice for long-term merging potential due to his availability in the 3-4 star summoning pool. Combined with his high BST, this makes him a great choice for any player looking to advance to the upper tiers of Arena.

Draug’s massive Defense makes him a fantastic wall against all physical threats. Unfortunately, his Resistance is rather low and makes him vulnerable to all forms of magical damage, though this can be mitigated by utilizing his mixed phase build to take fights on his own terms. Draug’s relatively middling Attack is easily compensated by the massive damage that his Specials can unleash thanks to Specials like Ignis utilizing his Defense stat.

While Draug suffers from typical armored unit problems like poor mobility and a weakness to anti-armor weapons in addition to his shortcomings in his stats, he is still quite a powerful unit simply due to his access to unique armor skills like Bold Fighter. While his best builds require significant investment, he is still fully capable of being a great asset to a team even with a more budget build.

Strengths

Fantastic Defense

Draug’s strongest stat is his Defense. At 39 base, he is incredibly resilient against physical threats and can leverage this in his favor via powerful Specials to help make up for his middling Attack.

Armor Unit

As an armor, Draug enjoys access to the armor-exclusive skills Bold Fighter, Vengeful Fighter, and armor buffs (like Ward Armor), as well as a big boost to his BST.

Great Availability

As a unit available in the 3-4 star summoning pool, Draug is a fantastic choice for someone looking for an accessible option for long-term potential. His high BST also makes him a great unit to bring into Arena for scoring purposes.

Decent Speed

Draug is one of the few armored units that has a surprisingly decent Speed stat; this allows him to consider stacking Speed to avoid getting doubled, though this is a bit of a moot point when considering enemies that can double regardless of Speed (such as enemies with Bold Fighter).

Weaknesses

Anti-Armor Weapons

As an armor unit, Draug shares a weakness to anti-armor weapons such as Armorslayer. Technically he could easily mitigate this with Svalinn Shield, but it severely limits his potential to not be able to run another skill like Steady Breath or Distant Counter.

Poor Mobility

As an armored unit, Draug has very low movement; this can be mitigated with Armor March (or potentially the Armored Boots seal), but that is sacrificing a skill or Seal slot that could otherwise be used for something else.

Legendary Hector is an extremely powerful ally due to Ostia’s Pulse. Lowering Draug’s starting Special cooldown by 1 has a ton of applications (such as allowing Draug to instantly activate Ignis on his first counterattack with a Slaying Edge and Steady Breath), though it does come with the tradeoff of limiting team building due to its restrictions.

Buffers: Units like Delthea, Marth, and Sanakican all grant powerful bonuses from their unique weapons that can greatly enhance Draug’s combat ability.

User Submitted Builds

These are his stats at +10 and 2 dragonflowers. Spd would be preferred, I just haven't gotten lucky. Wo Dao boosted Ignis bombs proc every engagement as long as he doubles. Barrier blade is a safer option vs magical threats at the cost of some damage. But I find that over 80 magical bulk combined with his speed gives him decent matchups vs green and some red mages, beside the one-shot types like Lilina and Sanaki.

By utilizing a plus attack minus hp draug with major investment into bold fighter and armorsmasher, it is possible to not only boost draugs def to 43 without buffs, but his ability to gurantee a double allows him to deal with the armor meta quite well.

This is Draug, the rage quit fuel.
He has an unbuffed 48 defense, his teammates collectively raise it to 60.
That being said, he even has other selling points like his 42 speed and 56 hp (after the water blessing).
Renewal is good for refilling the rage quit tank. Fury works well with his 4*+10 status, giving him effectively 7 points in each stat from the base 4* at level 40 stats.
Slaying edge is currently more useful, but Armorsmasher has great utility in tier 20 for obvious reasons.
Aether for weight, Drive Attack for his companions Hana and Nino, Armored Boots so he can actually keep up with them.
He nets 726 in the arena, accounting for the water blessing.

DOGA DID YOU SEE THAT SHOT?
This build is a descendant of Naga herself. It fully maximizes his player phase with death blow and bold fighter to increase damage and to ensure a guaranteed follow up attack. +Atk ensures more damage and -Res is a safe bane as he shouldn't be fighting mages anyway.

Perhaps after constantly fighting hordes of Zelgius', Ayras, Ravens and Ikes, you've had enough. Maybe they appeared all on one annoying team on the last match of Arena Assault, and you were too tired to think or strategize around them and just wanted to be done. If any of the above apply, this build is specifically tailor-made for that one occasion.

Draug, having the highest possible defense on a sword unit, now has the novelty of reaching the highest defense possible in the game, and will surely be able to wall anything and everything physical, making that last arena assault match easy. This is done through the combination of a defense boon, Fortress Defense, a defense refined Safeguard+ and Steady Breath, which brings Draug to an effective 62 defense when defending. Combined with Guard, not even specials can allow your opponents to physically harm him, from bows to sometimes even lances.

To compliment this, Ignis is the special of choice. Since his ideal environment is one where he can outwall his opponents near if not indefinitely with the help of Guard, Draug can bide his time and take hits to charge Ignis to burst damage his way through opponents. With this setup Draug's Ignis can hit for 49 burst damage on enemy phase, or 40 damage on player phase to nuke more selectively or take out physical ranged units. With Guard, Draug can also attack on player phase to unleash Ignis or get more special charges without any backlash, making it a surprisingly versatile special under the right circumstances.

It should be noted that he can still be defeated by the likes of Zelgius with Bold Fighter if Zelgius isn't taken out immediately after his first two attacks due to Heavy Blade allowing opponents to bypass Guard and gain 1 charge per attack, and this flaw also applies to opponents with Heavy Blade, enemies that have their specials immediately (e.g. via infantry pulse) among other things. Furthermore, this build will immediately crumble to basically anything that deals magical damage, which also includes units like Felicia. Finally, one should be careful to maintain Draug's HP especially in circumstances with skills such as Poison Strike and Savage Blow, as Guard is necessary to prevent specials from tearing through him. This build is made for very specific kinds of engagements, and should be treated as such.